• Drawing out those with the most serious literacy issues is a continuing challenging.

• Particular sensitivity is required around the expectations educators and those in the literacy community give to and have of adult learners.

Minding the Gaps: Community-Based Partnership and Collaboration…

• While numerous programs and strategies to foster literacy and learning are in place throughout the province, they are far out-stripped by need.

• Greater inter-agency cooperation and coordination, and more of a community-based approach to intervention, are necessary. Effective interventions around literacy require collaboration among government agencies, training providers, and business and labour.

• Collaboration is hampered by issues of trust, time, resources, and rivalries over funding. Confidentiality issues are also problematic.

• Throughout the province, Regional Literacy Coordinators play a meaningful role – but are significantly under-resourced.

• Despite the mutual benefit they would derive from working together on basic skills upgrading and workplace learning strategies, tensions between labour and management continue to impede action.

• Partnerships and collaboration around literacy and learning do exist throughout the province and provide a rich variety of models on which educators and those in the literacy community can build, including:
  
  collaborative education delivery
  “in kind” contribution arrangements
  program-specific partnerships
  partnerships with First Nations
  educator/employer partnerships
  labour/management partnerships
  dialogue, liaison, and referral
  strategic alliances and “learning community” initiatives
  
  

Respecting Community Differences: One Size Doesn’t Fit All…

• Communities – and community differences – are more than just geographic. The circumstances and needs of First Nations people are different from those of non-aboriginal people, for example. Moreover, there are significant differences in the circumstances and needs within the “community” of First Nations peoples throughout the province.